“As it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.” (Romans 11:8).
Israel is mourning the death of its former president, Shimon Peres, considered to be the last link to Israel’s founding generation. Leaders literally from all over the world came to his funeral, except for Vladimir Putin, who refused to be in the same place with Barack Obama. Breaking Israel News is even calling it a fulfilling of Bible prophecy, which will herald the coming of the Messiah. The following is an excerpt:
“What is happening now is a process directed from Heaven, that so many world leaders will come to Jerusalem on the eve of Rosh Hashana,” Rabbi Berger told Breaking Israel News. “This is exactly like the psalm we will say a few days after the funeral, before blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashana:”
“O clap your hands, all ye peoples; shout unto God with the voice of triumph. For Hashem is most high, awful; a great King over all the earth.He subdueth peoples under us, and nations under our feet” (Psalms 47:2-4).
“This verse is speaking specifically about Gog and Magog,” explained Rabbi Berger. “The foreign kings may think they are coming for a funeral, but the reason they are really coming is to acknowledge God as their king, before blowing the great shofar to bring in the Messiah.”
Rabbi Berger noted another auspicious aspect of the unscheduled gathering. “This is also the weekly Torah reading of Nitzavim, which begins with the gathering of leaders,” said Rabbi Berger.
“Ye are standing this day all of you before Hashem your God: your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel” (Deuteronomy 29:9).
Rabbi Berger quoted Maimonides, the foremost Torah authority of the 12th century known by the acronym of his name, Rambam, whose rulings are still used as the basis for much of Jewish law. Rabbi Berger explained that the Rambam brought this verse in the laws pertaining to kings as the sign of the beginning of the Messiah.”
Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, considered in Israel to be one of the most prominent Torah figures alive today, quoted the Talmud (Megillah 17b) saying, “In the year after Smittah, the Son of David will come.”
The Smittah year began at Rosh Hashanah of 2014 and ended at Rosh Hashanah of 2015, the Jewish New Year. Rosh Hashanah is also called The Feast of Trumpets. Supposedly it is also known as “no man knows the day or the hour” since the beginning of the feast is dependent upon two witnesses seeing the first sliver of the new moon. If for some reason they don’t see it, the feast automatically begins the next day. So, there is a two-day window allowed for the feast.
This year that two-day window for the Feast of Trumpets begins the evening of October 2 and ends the evening of October 4.
We Christians know that Jesus, the Messiah, will come first to take his true followers to meet Him in the air in what we refer to as the Rapture. Only we will hear the sound of the trumpet of God calling us up in the twinkling of an eye. Many believe it will happen at the last trump of the Feast of Trumpets in whatever year God chooses. But He can come at any time not related to the feasts. We can only know the general time by the signs. And yes, we are in that time, but one knows the day or the hour, not even the angels in heaven.
Those rabbis are right about the soon coming of the Messiah, but they’re in for a huge surprise when they find out who He is. But Jesus will not return physically to Earth until the end of the seven-year Tribulation, known as “the time of Jacob’s trouble.” During that time a remnant of Israel will be saved.
And when Jesus returns, the whole world will see him coming on the clouds with his raptured followers, riding white horses.
So if someone appears before that claiming to be the Messiah, he is lying. Daniel 9:27 tells us that it is the Antichrist who will confirm a covenant with many for a period of seven years. But in the middle of that seven-year period, he will defile the temple in Jerusalem, claiming to be God. Things will be bad enough the first 31/2 years of the Tribulation, but after this happens, all hell will break loose, for the Antichrist will literally be indwelt by Satan at that point.
It is then that the Jews will flee to the hills in what many believe will be Petra. It has only one way in and out and it is narrow. This will afford the Jews some protection. Here they will stay until the end of the Tribulation when Christ returns to Earth.
I have more to say concerning Shimon Peres. No doubt he did some good things for Israel, but let’s be honest here; He made at least one disastrous decision—the Oslo Accords he initiated and signed on September 13, 1993. God does not want His land divided.
As a matter of fact, September 13, 2016—the day Peres had the stroke which ended up taking his life—was exactly 23 years to the day in which he signed the Oslo Accords with Arafat and Rabin to divide Israel.
Speaking of Yitshak Rabin, he was also willing to give up Israel’s land for peace, and he ended up assassinated for it. Rabin’s last name reminds me of the Orthodox Jewish Bible translation of Daniel 9:27: “And he (antichrist) shall confirm brit (covenant) with rabbim…” Could this possibly be a reference to the future covenant being the final confirmation of the 1993 Oslo Accord with Rabin? It’s an odd coincidence anyway.
From the late Jack Kelly’s article “The Coming Prince:”
“The covenant the antichrist will confirm is based on the formula of “land for peace” the formula upon which the Oslo Agreement (September 13, 1993 –September 13, 2000) was based. So the treaty exists,
but collapsed before it was fully implemented. The antichrist is said to ‘confirm’ the covenant, not write it, or negotiate it or sign it. He ‘confirms’ it. One cannot confirm anything unless it first exists!
Some translations say “make a firm covenant.” This 1993 covenant was not “made firm” then, and neither has Oslo II.
As far as the terrorist Yasser Arafat being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize— not only was it not warranted due to the horrible atrocities he was responsible for, but Arafat never intended to keep peace with Israel. He explained to his Muslim followers that he had no intention of honoring a peace agreement with Israel. He based his decision on a strategy Mohammad used in the 7th century: making a truce with the enemy, then when the time was right, going in and slaughtering them.
That is still true now of the so-called ‘Palestinians.’ They had what they asked for on a silver platter and they refused it. They don’t want peace. They want to completely annihilate every Jew and take over all of Israel for themselves.
From Hal Lindsey “The Oslo Mythology” at wnd. com: “If the ‘Palestinians’ wanted a state, they would have taken former Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s offer, which even gave them a vital part of Old Jerusalem. No Israeli leader could offer them more. If they wanted economic security, they could have used the billions of dollars contributed to them to set up the infrastructure – instead of buying weapons and attacking Israel. The truth is, they are operating on the Muslim-based passion that Israel must be annihilated and the Islamic holy places must be cleansed of any Israeli presence. This is something the U.S. State Department seems to be incapable of grasping.” — Hal Lindsey wnd. com
Besides Yitshak Rabin and Shimon Peres being willing to remove the Israelis from Gaza to hand it over to the ‘Palestinians,’ Ariel Sharon ended up doing just that in 2005. He changed the date of the forced expulsion from its original date on the 9th of Av to the next day so that the Israelis would not associate the expulsion with the saddest known day on the Jewish calendar (because of the many tragedies that have befallen the Jews on that very day in history). Not long afterward Ariel Sharon suffered the first of two strokes. The second one put him in a coma for eight years before he finally died. Tests were done on his brain that showed activity, such as when he was shown photos of his family and when he heard his son’s voice. But he never regained consciousness.
The Gaza expulsion has had devastating effects. Right after turning Gaza over to Mahmoud Abbas and his ‘Palestinian Authority,’ the terrorist group Hamas took it over, and they’ve been terrorizing Israel ever since.
There is a scripture in the Bible in which God warned the Israelites centuries ago. They didn’t listen then and then aren’t listening now.
“But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell” (Numbers 33:55).
When the Jews returned to Israel, it was a barren wasteland. The Bible makes reference to that fact more than once. But the Jews hired outsiders from Jordan and Egypt to come and live and work in Israel. These are the very people today who claim to be ‘Palestinians,’ claiming they’d been there all along. It’s a lie.
Another controversial hero of the Israelis, Moshe Dayan, made a huge mistake when the Israeli forces retook the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in the Six Day War. Not being a religious man, he saw no religious importance to the Temple Mount and later ordered the Israeli flag removed, and gave administrative control of the Temple Mount over to the Waqf, a Muslim council—all to keep the peace.
How has that worked out? It hasn’t, obviously.
There is something else I want to discuss regarding what seems to be God’s judgment. It has to do with Israel’s two doomed communications satellites, Amos 5 and Amos 6. If you read both of those chapters, you’d be scratching your head as to why Israel would name those two satellites after those two chapters.
Amos chapter 5 is a warning to Israel to repent, which Israel does not do. At the end of the chapter God says, “Therefore, I will make you go into exile beyond Damascus.”
The satellite Amos 5 was lost in space. I guess you could say it went into exile beyond the stars.
And what about Amos 6?
On September 1st, coincidentally the day we had a ring of fire solar eclipse—and just two days before the United States Rocket 9 was to launch into space carrying the latest two million dollar Israel communications satellite, Amos 6, there was an explosion which burned it up.
Amos chapter 6 speaks of judgment against Israel. At the end of the chapter God says, “For behold, I am going to raise up a nation against you, O house of Israel,” declares the Lord God of hosts, “And they will afflict you from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of the Arabah” (Amos 6:14).
Hamath is modern-day Hama in Syria, and Arabah is at the border between Israel and Jordan.
Both Amos 5 and Amos 6 speak of trouble from Syria. Right now there are explosions all over Syria. A massive convoy of Syrian army reinforcements has arrived in Hama, and the Syrian army and Iran-backed Hezhollah have poured into the city of Quneitra, near the border of both Israel and Jordan.There are clashes going on in the Damascus suburbs, and Putin and Assad are annihilating northern Syria (Aleppo).
Jeremiah 49 also sounds like what’s going on now.
“Hamath (Hama) & Arpad (northern Aleppo) are confounded, for they have heard bad news; they melt in fear, they are troubled like the sea that cannot be quiet. Damascus has become feeble, she turned to flee, & panic seized her; anguish & sorrows have taken hold of her, as of a woman in labor” (Jer.49:23-24).
Isaiah 17 tells us that Damascus will be completely destroyed in one night, and other parts of Syria and northern Israel will be in bad shape as well, with many fleeing the land. And in Ezekiel 38-39, the Russian confederacy which includes Iran and Turkey will launch an attack on the mountains of Israel (Golan Heights).
It was September 30, 2015 when Putin planted his fighters in Syria (the hook in Gog’s jaw? Ezekiel 38). It was the same week that Israel discovered oil in the disputed Golan Heights. This will be the spoil that Russia (Magog) will be after when finished with Syria. Iran and the others will be in it to annihilate Israel. But God will reveal Himself in a miraculous way on the mountains of Israel, and the whole world will know it was He who singlehandedly destroyed the vast army who have come after His chosen people, with whom He has an everlasting covenant.
As the first of September greeted us with a ring of fire solar eclipse, the 30thof September gave us a rare new black moon on the last day. There are wars and rumors of wars literally everywhere. All the signs are converging that Jesus and His prophets warned us of, including signs in the heavens.
Yes, the age of the Gentiles is just about at the end. After the Rapture, God will turn his full attention to Israel.
“Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brethren: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (Romans 11:25).
“The late Grant Jeffrey said, “While we would rejoice at the prospects of a true peace in the Middle East, we must recognize that the ancient prophets warned that a false peace will set the stage for the final conflict that will end with the Battle of Armageddon. The prophet Jeremiah warned that in the last days men would say “Peace, peace! When there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14). Our world will not know true peace until Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace comes and changes the hearts of both the Arabs and the Jews. Then both peoples will dwell as brothers in true peace forever under the rule of their Messiah.”
Even so, come Lord Jesus!
Cynthia Nuara